Beach Colors

by Shelley Noble

  They peered into the crevice.

  “Now what?” asked Margaux. “I’m not sure you should stick your hand in there.”

  It was too late. Bri’s arm disappeared up to the elbow. There was a scraping noise; the sound of dirt and pebbles rolling away. Brianna withdrew her hand and lifted a plastic Tupperware container into the light.

  A hush fell over the Grotto. The air was so still Margaux could hear the faint buzz of a skill saw in the distance.

  Brianna thrust the Tupperware at Margaux. “I say we read this over a martini.” She scrambled awkwardly back to the daylight, Margaux and Grace at her heels.

  They retraced their steps through the cove and over the jetty.

  “I hope this isn’t going to turn out to be one of those Pandora’s box–type things,” Margaux said, clutching the container to her chest as they strode across the beach.

  “Nah. It was before we became so jaded,” said Bri.

  “I’m not jaded,” Grace said.

  “No, alas, you’re not, but hope springs eternal.”

  Grace made a face at her.

  “Happy hour,” Bri announced as soon as they reached the porch.

  They went straight through the house to the kitchen. Margaux placed the container on the kitchen table while Bri made the martinis and Grace opened bags of nuts and chips, and spooned dip into a bowl.

  By the time they carried everything out to the living room, Bri had refilled their glasses and half the chips were gone. Margaux pushed aside the pencils and sketches that littered the top of the blanket chest and placed the diary in the center. Grace arranged the drinks and hors d’oeuvres.

  “Hmm,” Bri said, picking up the stack of sketches. “The lamp, the couch, the rug, the window. Is this some kind of therapy?”

  Margaux shook her head. “I was just doodling. Waiting for the muse to return.”

  “Huh,” Bri said, and took a sip of her drink. “The thing I’ve learned about muses is that you can’t wait for them to act. Sometimes, you have to grab them by the hair and beat them into submission.”

  “You have a muse?” Grace asked incredulously. “She could probably sue you. I know a good lawyer.” She grinned and flopped back on the couch and Margaux realized they were all getting a little tipsy.

  She and Bri sat down and they all looked at the Tupperware container.

  Brianna took a sip of her martini. “Who’s going to open it?”

  “You are,” Margaux said.

  “You’re the oldest,” Grace said.

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “And it was your idea,” added Margaux.

  “Like I said, don’t remind me.” Bri took another sip of martini and set her glass down.

  “We vowed to meet in twenty years to see if our dreams had come true. Seeing how it’s been nineteen-plus years—”

  “Maybe we should wait,” Grace said.

  “So maybe none of us is in the best place to talk about dreams coming true, but, hell, aren’t you curious?”

  “I’m not sitting around wondering what it says for another year,” said Margaux. “We started this, let’s finish it.”

  Bri eyed the plastic diary as if it were the Lost Ark of the Covenant.

  Grace slid the container toward Bri. “You got it out. You read it.”

  Bri cut her a look but reached for the Tupperware. She lifted the edge of the rubber top and pulled it off, revealing a square pink book closed with a golden lock.

  There was an audible sigh from all three.

  She held it for a moment, then pushed the brass button on the side. Nothing happened. She threw it onto the coffee table. “It’s locked.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud. Give it here.” Grace took the diary from Bri. “Mags, you have a paper clip somewhere?”

  “Probably.” Margaux found one in the writing desk. Grace unfolded it, stuck it in the keyhole, and with one twist, the lock flipped open. “You didn’t see that.” She handed the diary back to Bri.

  “Here goes.” Bri opened the diary and read. “This diary is the property of the Selkies. Anyone caught reading these words will answer to us.”

  Grace chuckled. “Hard to believe we were ever that young.”

  “Speak for yourself.” Bri turned the page. “August 31, 19—well, forget the date.” She flipped several pages over. “Grace.”

  “I object,” countered Grace. “Go in order.”

  “Overruled,” said Bri. “ ‘Grace Holcombe, age thirteen. I’m going to be an attorney when I get out of college. Not the kind that makes lots of money, but the kind that will help bring justice to the world.’ ”

  “Okay, stop, stop.” Grace grabbed for the book. Bri snatched it away and continued to read with it held out of Grace’s reach.

  “ ‘It doesn’t matter if a client can’t pay. If I believe in their case, I’ll help them. The crooks of the world won’t have a chance if they come up against me.’ Favorite color: pink.” Bri burst out laughing. “Pink? You were going to right the wrongs of the world and your favorite color was pink?”

  Grace threw a peanut at her.

  “Pink aside, you seem to be right on target with your dream of being a poor bleeding-heart attorney.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Favorite food: Skilling’s hamburgers. Favorite boyfriend: Larry T? I thought you were going steady with Bobby Covington.”

  Grace laughed. “I plead the Fifth.”

  “Okay. Margaux.” Bri lifted both eyebrows at her. “Are we quite ready? ‘I, Margaux Sullivan, have a dream.’ ”

  “Oh shit, I didn’t write that.”

  “Yes, you did.” Bri turned the book around. “See, right here. ‘I, Margaux Sullivan, have a dream. To design clothes that will make people who wear them feel good about themselves. I have a long way to go, but I’ll get there.’ ”

  “Favorite color: Granny Smith apple-peel green. How poetic. Favorite food: tacos. Boyfriend. What? I can’t even read this. It’s just scribble.”

  “I kept changing my mind.” Margaux sighed. “I can’t even remember any of their names. Your turn.”

  “I think I need another martini.”

  “Oh no you don’t,” Grace protested. “You’re not going to start slurring your words just when we get to you.”

  Bri turned the page and read silently.

  “Out loud!” Grace and Margaux cried together.

  “ ‘I, Brianna Boyce, will set the world afire’—shit—‘I’m going to New York and sign with Elite Management. Watch for me on the runways of Paris, Milan, and New York.’ ” Bri’s voice wavered. “Well, I made it . . . and lost it.”

  “Me, too,” said Margaux. “I guess that’s something. Just to get there.”

  “Yeah,” Grace said. “But did it ever occur to you that dreams are just that—dreams.”

  “Is that legalese for ‘we really screwed up’?” asked Bri.

  “No. Just keep reading. Which of your many boyfriends did you put down. Or did you put them all down?”

  “Ben,” said Bri.

  “The lifeguard? You never even talked to him, just giggled whenever he was around.”

  Bri shrugged, a gesture of loss. “I know and now he’s dead. You just never know . . .” She trailed off into silence.

  “No you don’t,” Margaux said, suddenly wondering what happened to the boy in the library, what he was doing now and if his dreams had come true.

  Bri stood up, swayed slightly. “Time to cook the steaks.”

  They finished the pitcher of martinis while Bri manned the grill and Margaux and Grace made salad and kibitzed from inside the screen door. They ate in the kitchen and polished off a bottle of wine over dinner, then donned sweatshirts and moved to the porch where they stayed up until the wee hours.

  Margaux told them the
long version of her crash and burn; Bri described her stay in a Swiss sanatorium. Grace listened to it all just as if she was in a courtroom, but swore there was nothing much to tell about her life.

  “Not to worry,” Bri told her. “Your time is near. The Selkies are back and ready to rock and roll.”

  It was nearly three when Bri stood up and announced, “I’m going to bed. I have to get up early to feed the animals.”

  Margaux squinted one eye at her. “You have animals?”

  “Two dogs, a barn full of cats—I stopped counting at six—four chickens, a rooster, and a goat.”

  “A goat?”

  “Her name is Hermione.”

  “You named her?”

  “Well, I’m not going to eat her.”

  “What about the rooster?”

  “Merv.”

  “Grace, is she telling me the truth?”

  Grace nodded. “Afraid so.”

  “I can’t even begin to imagine.”

  “When I’m a little more set up, you’ll have to come see for yourself. ’Night.” Bri yawned and headed for the stairs.

  Margaux stood, too. “Wait a minute. What are we going to do with the diary?”

  “Take it back?” Grace suggested.

  “In the middle of the night?”

  Bri looked around the room. “We could put it in the blanket chest. We might want to read it again. If Mags doesn’t mind.”

  “It’s okay with me, though it is kind of weird, being the keeper of our hopes for the future, especially now that it is our future.”

  The three of them clustered around the blanket chest and lifted the lid. The chest opened in a whiff of cedar to reveal a stack of folded blankets. Grace placed the diary on top.

  “The Selkies forever,” Brianna intoned. She licked three fingers, held them in the air, and yawned.

  “The Selkies forever,” Grace and Margaux repeated.

  Margaux closed the chest and they began returning things to the top. Bri picked up Margaux’s sketchbook. “What’s in here?”

  Margaux shrugged. “More of the same. Furniture, the beach, sailboats.”

  “Mags, I don’t want to be pushy, but shouldn’t you be working on next season’s line? I understand the need to cleanse the palette, but to hell with waiting on that muse you were talking about. You and I both know the fashion world doesn’t wait for inspiration.”

  “Yes, I do know. But like I told you, I don’t have jack, not even a spool of thread. There’s no way I’ll get anything out by fall.”

  “Maybe not, but spring surely.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Excuse me? You two went to Catholic school. What did the nuns always say?”

  Grace groaned. “Can’t was killed in the battle of tried.”

  Margaux heaved a sigh. “They obviously didn’t know the fashion industry.”

  “You just figured that out now?” Bri jabbed her finger at her forehead. “Hey, maybe that’s where you got your inspiration.”

  “Where?”

  “From the nuns, all those black-and-white habits.”

  Margaux rolled her eyes.

  “Just a thought. And now, good night.”

  As she tossed the sketchbook onto the trunk, a piece of paper slipped from the back pages and wafted to the floor. Before Margaux even realized what it was, Bri leaned over and picked it up. She glanced at the page as she started to put it back in the sketchbook. “Wait a minute. What—or should I say who—is this?”

  “I was just doodling.”

  “What is it?” asked Grace, sliding around the chest to peer at the drawing of Nick Prescott, merman.

  “It’s nothing really.” Margaux reached for the drawing.

  Grace studied the sketch, her eyebrows dipping in concentration. “He looks familiar. Except for the tail.”

  “He does,” Bri agreed. “Really familiar.”

  “I was just being fanciful. I was out on the jetty and just let my imagination run.”

  Bri looked at the sketch. “You know, he really, really looks familiar. Let me think.”

  Margaux slipped the merman sketch from her fingers, stuck it in between the pages of the sketchbook, and tucked the book under her arm before she nudged Bri and Grace out of the room.

  “Really familiar,” said Bri as they climbed the stairs to bed.

  Margaux awoke six hours later to bright sunlight and a hangover. She was a one-glass-of-wine-a-night girl and she had overindulged—overate, overdrank, and overconfessed, big-time. She forced herself to sit up and sat on the edge of the bed waiting for the pounding in her head to stop.

  After a few minutes, she realized it wasn’t nearly as bad as she anticipated. She put on sweats and tiptoed across the hall. She peeked into the other bedrooms; the beds were made and there was no trace of Grace or Bri.

  She went downstairs to the kitchen where she found coffee and a note. “Had a fabulous time. Thanks for having us. We love you. Now get your butt in gear and go to work. See you soon. Bri and Grace.”

  Can’t was killed in the battle of tried. They were right. It was time she got off the pity wagon and started fighting her way back to the top.

  Eight

  The house seemed empty with her two friends gone. It wasn’t the kind of house that did well with empty. It had always been the hub of beach activity; her parents and their friends, Danny and his friends, then Margaux and the Selkies.

  The emptiness just accented what she knew and Bri had pointed out. She was procrastinating and she couldn’t put it off any longer. She had to start working on new designs. Every day she was away from New York, her presence became weaker. The industry had a short memory, and it was too easy to slip into obscurity.

  But the mere thought of what it would take to get back what she lost made her sick to her stomach. Made her hands tremble, made her mouth go dry.

  Can’t was killed in the battle of tried.

  Bri was right about the nuns influencing her. Not with their black habits, but with their work ethic. It had helped her rise to the top. And it would help her again.

  She’d need a place to work where the light was good. The living room looked south, but the porch shaded it from the sun. All the bedrooms were filled with beds, chairs, and bookcases. Only her parents’ room got full light and she didn’t have the heart to move things to make room for her easel.

  She even looked into the room she and Louis had shared on their few trips to Crescent Cove.

  At first she stood at the closed door, afraid to open it. She had pushed her soon-to-be-ex-husband almost out of her mind since she’d been here and she didn’t want him intruding again. Didn’t want to unleash any demons that might be lurking there. But when she finally turned the knob, nothing happened. It was just an unused room, with a chenille spread covering the bed, mismatched end tables, and a rag rug made of undershirts.

  Margaux sank down on the bed, the scene of their last beach house fight. When Margaux said she wanted to start a family and Louis refused. He liked their life the way it was and children would only interfere. Margaux had been floored. He’d known from the beginning she wanted children; he said he wanted them. He’d lied about that, too.

  She stood up. She’d been wrong. There were demons here, the ones she’d brought with her. She crossed to the window, opened it, and let the wind blow them all away.

  At that moment, she remembered Linda asking, “Do you know anyone who wants to rent a retail space? Cheap?” and looking into the bright deserted room at Le Coif.

  She could design and construct there. If it was still available and Linda would accept a fee Margaux could afford.

  And out of her sense of loss and futility, something rose—not a phoenix—something smaller, newborn, like a baby chick cracking out of its shell. And for the first time in weeks, Margaux felt
a spur of excitement.

  She dressed, ran a comb through her hair, grabbed her purse, and went outside to her car.

  The gas gauge read empty. Or near enough to have to buy gas, and that was one expense she could curtail, especially with the prospect of rent ahead of her. She had a perfectly nice purple bike. Plus riding to town would give her much-needed exercise, since a gym was out of the question. She pumped up the tires, threw her purse in the basket, and climbed on.

  She wobbled up Salt Marsh Lane and nearly fell off when she hit a crack in the asphalt. Undaunted, she straightened out the wheel and made the turn. By the time she reached the gate, she was cycling like a pro, though she did have second thoughts about tackling Shore Road.

  But it was only three blocks until it turned into Main Street. She waited for a minivan to pass, then crossed the road to ride with the flow of traffic. Hugging close to the shoulder, she pedaled into town and came to a stop in front of Le Coif a few uneventful minutes later.

  She propped the bike against the side of the steps, making a note to find a lock before the tourists arrived.

  The front door was locked. Of course, it was Sunday and Linda would be closed. Margaux could wait until Monday, but she was stoked and impatient, and she didn’t think Linda would turn her nose up at a potential renter even if it was Sunday.

  Margaux rang the bell and waited.

  “Hang on. I’m coming.” Linda hurried across the street, not dressed for church, but wearing a flowered sarong and a black Cyclones hoodie zipped up to her neck. A magenta bandanna covered her head, and she was carrying a giant yellow beach bag that bounced against her thigh as she trotted across the cobblestones.

  She stopped a few feet away and gave Margaux the once-over. “What? Everything looks fine.”

  Margaux shook her head until her hair flew. “Everything is perfect. I came because I was wondering if you still have that room for rent?”

  Linda’s frown brightened into a toothy grin. “You interested?”

  “Maybe. Short-term. For a studio, just while I’m here or until you can rent it out permanently. If . . .” God, she hated having to say this. “If I can afford it.”

  “You can afford it,” Linda said, searching in her bag. “Here, hold this.”